Clocktower

The game

Clocktower is Clock Patience dealt on a gothic clockface: a real shuffled 52-card deck goes out into twelve hour positions around an aged ivory dial, while the four suits wait in the centre to be built ace to king. Brass gears turn and a pendulum swings behind the numerals, and a sixteen-card tower deck feeds your single hand slot. Four free cells are the whole strategy — park the card that is blocking the one you need, dig it out, and start a suited run. The clip is one honest deal: aces land from the I, IX, XII and V positions, the tower yields the two of hearts, the king of spades is lifted off X into a brass cell to uncover the four, and two cards come off II to reach the six — the heart run climbs to six high and twelve of fifty-two are home, with the gears still turning.

How to play

• Drag a card from an hour pile, a free cell or your hand onto its destination; a gold dashed outline marks the slot you are hovering.
• Send a card home by dragging it onto its suit's foundation in the centre — each suit must go ace, two, three … up to king, and every card that lands rings a chime.
• Stack a single card onto an hour pile only one rank lower and in the opposite colour; an empty hour position takes any card.
• Any single card may rest in one of the four brass free cells (one card each) — that is your pivot for unburying the card you need.
• Click the tower deck (or press Space / Enter) to draw its top card into your one hand slot; the slot must be empty before you draw again.
• Double-click a card to auto-send it home, or onto a legal build, or into a free cell.
• Click or press Enter on the title card to start a fresh clock; P or Esc pauses.
• You win by getting all 52 cards home — ALL BELLS RUNG. If the tower deck runs dry with no legal move left, THE GEARS HAVE STOPPED and the run ends with its FILLED n/52 tally and move count.